Partners to diplomacy: Transnational experts and knowledge transfer among global policy programs

This chapter focuses on the "global programs" of the World Bank that have been financed through Development Grant Facility (DGF). It argues that expert knowledge is increasingly co-terminus with governance whereby experts in transnational policy communities (TPCs) co-author and co-construct specific global policy institutions such as GRPPs. The diversification of knowledge inputs into TPCs can cultivate a dynamic for social learning within a community. The partnership and global programs facilitate policy transfer and knowledge translation as a transnational policy process. Even within international organizations, the meaning of "global policy" or "global programs" is opaque, indeterminate, and shifting. Public policy scholars have investigated the "black box" of bureaucracies to suggest that "international civil servants" are not merely agents acting on the directives of states but develop distinct agendas of their own. Three distinct types of policy actors are identifiable in TPCs: first, "international civil servants;" second, "internationalized public sector officials;" and third, "transnational policy professionals".